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Smeets and Stellwagen in Corus A
2 July 2008 15:21 PM | Last modified: 15:30
The organizers of the 71st Corus Chess Tournament have invited the young Dutch GMs Daniel Stellwagen and Jan Smeets for the Grandmaster Group A in 2009. The other players who have yet confirmed their participation are Aronian, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Kamsky, Karjakin, Morozevich, Movsesian, Radjabov and Van Wely.
The complete field, with a total of 14 participants, will be presented in October 2008, as well as the names of the participants in the Grandmaster Groups B and C.
For both reigning Dutch champion Jan Smeets and runner-up Daniel Stellwagen it means a debut at the highest level. Together with Loek van Wely, they will represent the Netherlands in the traditional chess festival, that will be held from Friday, January 16th to Sunday, February 1st, 2009.
This year, Smeets and Stellwagen finished shared 6th in Corus Grandmaster Group B. Here’s interview with Stellwagen after his first-round win against Krasenkow:
And here’s an interview conducted with Jan Smeets, right after he became Dutch champion in April this year:
Pavel Votruba new chief arbiter
Czech international arbiter Pavel Votruba (Benesov, 1948) will be the new chief arbiter, starting with the Corus Chess Tournament 2009. Mr. Votruba, who has been a member of the arbiters team since January 2004, succeeds Mr. Thomas van Beekum. Mr. Votruba has worked as an arbiter at different chess Olympiads, and holds the international master title as well. Mr. Van Beekum has been chief arbiter since 1991, when he succeeded Mr. Constant Orbaan.
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The field looks a lot weaker than this years A group, without Anand, Kramnik, Topalov…
is this a joke? They are seriously dropping three of the world’s best players for what reason again? Anand… kramnik topalov… okay just give carlsen first and dont’ hold the event.
Guys, could you please read the second paragraph again?
Smeets en Stellwagen horen naar mijn idee in de B-groep. Dat wordt slachtvee voor de toppers! Ik snap niet goed wat Corus hier mee wil bewerkstelligen. Meer publiciteit? Denk het niet. Ik ben benieuwd naar hun uitleg! Waarom geen Shirov???
Moet een A-groep persee zo sterk mogelijk zijn? Volgens mij is juist de kracht van het Corustoernooi dat ze in staat zijn een interessant deelnemersveld neer te zetten (wat dus niet per definitie het sterkste betekend) met spelers die het publiek mooi schaak bieden. Stellwagen en Smeets hebben al jaren lang voor goede publiciteit (ook op Corus) voor het schaken gezorgd en worden daar nu gewoon voor beloond!
there are still 3 spots left for the A-group and I think they will be filled by at least two top-10 players. I hope they will invite Mamedyarov and Anand and the last spot will then probably go to the strongest female: J. Polgar
Why not a place for the best amateur player from the last Open ? (lol)
Mooi gebaar van Corus. Wel ben ik het eens met Martien. Ik hoop dat Stellwagen en Smeets schaken ook na het toernooi schaken nog leuk vinden……
Kennelijk wil Corus meer weer Nederlanders in de A-groep. En kennelijk vinden ze Smeets en Stellwagen inmiddels zo sterk dat dezen het verlies aan gemiddelde ELO compenseren. De vragen die overblijven zijn: waarom zijn ze beiden zijn uitgenodigd?,waarom l’Ami niet? en doen ze er verstandig aan om hier op in te gaan?
Denk dat het wel mee zal vallen met dat “slachtvee” verhaal….
Publicitair gezien is het een goede zet m.i.
Blijkbaar zijn Jeroen c.s. tot de conclusie gekomen dat met name de Nederlandse media aandacht te wensen overliet de laatste jaren.
Zo, we weten alvast wie in januari de drie koppen van Jut zijn…
I don´t know why almost all the strong tournaments invite always loek va wely. I think there are a lot of better players who deserves get invited instead of van wely.
Why no lenier domÃnguez from cuba for example? if you look carefully all these players: Aronian, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Kamsky, Karjakin, Morozevich, Movsesian, Radjabov are around 2730 in the worst case, then ¿¿¿van wely??? with a lower rating everytime. I don´t understant why tournaments like corus, melody amber, dortmund and many others invite this player….i think that this is a favor for players like kramnik who play for a draw all his games with black and for a win with white. In this case kramnik, carlsen, ivanchuk….i don´t know, have a secure win. Loek van welly in all these strong tournaments draws or loses…What do you think about this???
Looks ridiculous…replace the three dutchmen for Shirov, Nakamura and Topalov and add Anand, Grishuk and (for God’s sake) Kramnik and you have the best possible tournament!
If the organisers are so stubborn as to replace places in the tournament for the top players with places for local guys, why not just make it a 16-player round robin or even combine all of the A-, B- and C-groups and have a huge swiss?
We have to assume the decision of Corus was based on rational arguments. These people aren’t stupid. But what’s good for Corus (publicity) isn’t always good for the chess-public, and neither for the players.
At the same time: always the same people in these toptournaments gets a bit boring, imho. The participation of Nakamura would be very interesting indeed.
A question: mention a couple of very strong and very interesting players to participate in Corus. In return: which players may pass a year?
My list:
on: Nakamura, Moro, Nepo, Ivanchuk.
off: Leko, Kramnik
@jmsw: You can see fighting chess at lower levels too. The top tournaments show high level chess, so i think you were a bit harsh saying that Kramnik and Lékó shouldn’t be invited just because they are not as aggressive as Morozevich for instance.